


you bear the scars

by alchemystique



Series: devil's backbone [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6575251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemystique/pseuds/alchemystique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Men.”</p><p>“Tell me about it,” Trish says, her voice somehow managing to convey both too-chipper energy and exasperation of the highest level. </p><p>“I don’t know how much I can, actually.”</p><p>Trish grins, tipping the plastic bottle in Karen’s direction. “The Punisher has taken you on as a pet project, you spend your days building up more enemies than even Jessica can manage on a bad day, and you’re totally attracted to a vigilante who prowls the streets at night killing people. Does that pretty much cover it?”</p><p>“How did you - I am not - there is nothing going on between me and Frank!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you bear the scars

Karen receives a call from her super one afternoon while she’s at work, halfway through typing up a fluff piece she hates almost as much as she hates Ellison for assigning it to her. Dylan, in his cracking voice, tells her in a worried tone that her boyfriend had come by and asked to be let in to her apartment.

Karen has a moment of absolute panic. 

“I didn’t know what to do, because he seemed really nice but he was - you know. No offense, Miss Page, but your boyfriend is _scary_. I think he had a gun.”  


“Everyone in this town has a gun, Dylan. _You_ have a gun.”  


“Yeah, but it’s not, like, loaded.”  


“Never tell anyone that ever again.”  


He sounds completely unapologetic, and Karen once again wonders at him. He’s taken over most of the duties for his father, the shithead who owns the building she lives in, and Dylan is for the most part pretty good at making sure she has hot water and that mysterious bullet holes are attended to - but he’s hopelessly naive and seems to think he’s living the dream. “Hey, sure thing. I told him I couldn’t let him in, and he didn’t seem like he was gonna, you know, _murder_ me or anything, but I figured, considering...” He lets the sentence hang for a moment, and Karen can’t tell if it’s a pause or if he’s gotten distracted by a squirrel. “Considering all the weird shit that’s happened to you, you’d probably wanna know. In case he isn’t your boyfriend. Or maybe he is your boyfriend and you had a bad break or...whatever.”

“Dylan. Did he actually say we were together?” She’s fairly certain she knows who would be dumb enough to try to intimidate her poor super into giving him a key, but she can’t be absolutely certain. Maybe she’s totally off base and one of her stories has drawn the wrong kind of attention. Again. As usual.  


She needs to get the hell out of this town.

She’s never getting the hell out of this town. 

Dylan sighs. “Well, no, but there was this, like, vibe, you know. Like he.. knew you. In a uh...biblical sense.”

“Jesus Christ, Dylan.”  


“Look, he glared at me the whole time and when I mentioned I didn’t think you had a boyfriend he got extra scowly and intimidating and I just... assumed?”  


Karen is almost positive she knows exactly who Dylan is talking about, now, but still - “What did he look like?”

“Uh... big. Not, like, super tall but he definitely looked like he could take pretty much anyone he wanted in a fight. Probably he has, because his nose was all funky. He had a buzzcut? Real creepy raspy voice. Kinda reminded me of that guy that was on the news forever ago, but he’s, like, dead, right?”  


Karen blows out a breath, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose wile Dylan continues to describe Frank Castle.

“Did you tell anyone else? The cops?”  


“Nah. I mean I definitely felt like he could kill me if he wanted, but he didn’t seem to want to, so. I figured I’d check with you first. Be kinda awkward if I had your boyfriend arrested.”  


“Thanks, Dylan. He’s a friend. Thinks I’m being reckless. He was probably just checking up on me, but um... if he comes back, tell him he can call me like a normal person would?”

“I’m totally not telling him that, Miss Page. He looks like he lands a mean punch.”  


Karen just sighs as she hangs up the phone.

\------

Trish knocks her on her ass twelve times in a row before she rolls her eyes and starts to unravel the wrappings around her hands. “Okay, what gives?”

Karen, for her part, tries to ignore her, instead returning to her feet, getting back into stance, but Trish is already reaching for a towel and bottles of water, tossing one in the general direction of Karen’s head. 

She barely catches it, and throws her head back in annoyance once she’s downed half the bottle.

“Men.”  


“Tell me about it,” Trish says, her voice somehow managing to convey both too-chipper energy and exasperation of the highest level. 

“I don’t know how much I can, actually.”  


Trish grins, tipping the plastic bottle in Karen’s direction. “The Punisher has taken you on as a pet project, you spend your days building up more enemies than even Jessica can manage on a bad day, and you’re totally attracted to a vigilante who prowls the streets at night killing people. Does that pretty much cover it?”

“How did you - I am _not_ \- there is nothing going on between me and Frank!”  


Trish hums and her grin widens.

Karen takes a moment to wonder why she ever thought Trish was sweet. 

“Jessica told me he asked her to check up on you. Seems like maybe there’s something going on. With at least one of you.”  


“I can’t explain the psyche of Frank fucking Castle, but we’re not. We don’t. He’s... a friend.”  


“Okay, I’m not saying you’re wrong, because I’m sure you know your relationship with the man better than I do, but from what I know he’s got a one track mind and pretty much the only thing that mind focuses on is murder. Until you’re in the picture. So just...be careful, I guess.”  


“That’s it? No lecture?”  


“I’m not your moral authority. Besides, if I thought he might hurt you this would be an entirely different conversation.”  


“And what conversation would that be?”  


“That’d be a ‘Jessica is telling the cops everything she knows about the Punisher right now.’ conversation. I’m not big on lectures and trying to convince people they’re making mistakes. I prefer getting shit done.”  


“Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of an asshole?”  


“It’s why I’m able to stand being in a room with Jessica for more than five minutes at a time.”  


It’s not the first time since Frank reappeared in her life that she’s found her thoughts wandering in that general direction - meandering thoughts with no real purpose, because Karen, despite herself, is still a little hung up on the now-dead idea of Matthew Murdock, and Frank. Well. Frank is a mess long before you bring the blood on his hands into the mix.

But there’s - a spark, and trust that neither one of them should reciprocate the way they do. There’s a bone deep understanding that they are _something_ to each other, and honestly Karen would be fine if it never went beyond ‘something’. But. She wonders sometimes. What he sees when he walks beside her down the street late at night (none of that hovering in the shadows crap anymore, and she’s thankful for that, because if she’s gonna have people following her she’d prefer it happened without her finely honed Frank-sense going haywire too). She wonders if he spends much time outside her presence being as exasperated by her dog-with-a-bone tendencies as he is when he’s standing right in front of her.

She imagines she crops up in his thoughts often enough. He seems to have read every piece she’s ever written, manages to reference them at the strangest and most inconvenient times. He’s broken into her apartment more times than Karen can count, at this point, and honestly she’s pretty sure he does it when she’s not around, too. She’ll get notes, sometimes, tucked into the pages of her stacks of research, little nudges in the right direction when she’s stuck, or bold letters warning her not to pick at particular threads.

She’s probably the closest thing he’s got to a friend, and it’s a difficult burden to carry, because he should scare the shit out of her, but instead she just hopes he gains something from her other than one last connection to his humanity.

“Speaking of Jessica...”  


Trish sighs. “She’s looking into it. But Karen, whatever it is you’re hoping to dig up on all this Roxxon crap...”

“I thought you didn’t lecture?”  


“I’m just saying, I hope you’re prepared for it to be ten times worse than you think it is.”  


“I’m always prepared for that.”  


\------

She’s halfway into her apartment when she notices the shadow looming by her billowing curtains - it’s dark in the hallway, and the light from outside is hazy, and the words come out of her mouth before she gets a good look at her late night visitor. “What the fuck, Frank?”

She hits the light switch and groans.

Karen really, really needs to pay more attention to her surroundings.

It’s the first time she’s seen Matt in ages - there had been an aborted attempt to meet at Josie’s for drinks, and she’d seen him for all of five incredibly uncomfortable and silent minutes before he’d been out the door - Foggy had stared at his departing back in disappointment, and a few minutes later she’d gotten a text from an unknown number, telling her to stay away from the docks that night.

Two days later she’d published a short piece on the death of a congressman, found in a shipping container by the docks, surrounded by dead cartel members.

She wonders if Frank had gotten to them all first, or if Matt was getting a little lax on his ‘don’t kill people, Frank’ policy.

“Karen,” he starts, and Karen slams her front door closed before she turns to stare at him.   


“If you’re here to lecture me, or tell me to back off of something you don’t want me involved in, or apologize for being a horrible friend to both me and Foggy, just forget about it, Matt. Get out of my apartment, get out of my business, and get off your high horse. Because I’m done playing nice and trying to pretend you didn’t treat the both of us like shit. I’m done listening to your excuses.”  


“I’m not here to lecture you.”  


Karen pauses, watching the way he grimaces, the shadows making the angles of his face appear stark. 

“I know it’s not my place, and I know whatever I tell you is going to do nothing to stop you from this... thing you feel you have to do.”  


“Then why are you here?”  


“Those men at the docks the other night. They were... they were a special brand of awful.”  


“Yes, the cartel does tend to attract horrible people.”  


“They were after information on you. The senator they found - he had ties to Roxxon, and they were looking in to you. Castle... he spotted them tailing you about a week ago.”  


Karen feels like she might throw up. There’s an inflection in Matt’s voice, a strange void of emotion, and Karen gets the sickening feeling he’d watched Frank kill those men without a word.

“Why are you telling me this?”  


“Because Castle’s been laid up in my loft for two days bitching about a few little bullet wounds, and I wanted you to know he was okay.”

Karen’s mind takes a roller coaster ride to crazy town. The amount of twists and turns in this five minute conversation is enough to remind her of the thrill she’d always felt around Matt, and the queasiness that always followed when she came to the realization that she was still only getting part of the story from him.   


“Why would you do that, Matt?”  


He seems momentarily confused by the question, his head tilting, and now that Karen knows at least some of the secrets Matt has kept from her, she wonders exactly what he’s trying to discern. Can he hear the concern in her voice, the skip of her heart at the thought of Frank catching bullets looking out for her? Can he smell the adrenaline, the rush of her own confusion at why in the world Matt would play nurse to a man he’s done nothing but disparage? 

“He didn’t want me to come. But I thought...I thought you’d be worried.”  


“My entire existence is just a constant stream of worry for all the idiot friends I have who want to save the world. Sometimes I even worry about my own hero complex. Why are you here, Matt?”  


She’s got a pretty good idea. Over the course of the last few weeks it feels like everyone she knows has decided Karen Page and The Punisher are more involved than they truly are. And Frank hadn’t wanted Matt to come, so of course the first thing Matt had done was stubbornly decide to do just that. If they aren’t actually using fists, there’s still got to be some fight between them.

Matt shuffles in place. 

“Look. Whatever we are now, I do still care about you. I don’t... I don’t know that I can ever trust you, and frankly the idea of trying to be friends with you is a little daunting, but I don’t hate you. And I appreciate you being concerned about me.” She leans against her door, watching him carefully. “Is he okay?”

She doesn’t mean to say it. It’ll raise more questions than she really has answers for, but it slips out all the same, and his head cocks, but he doesn’t ask about it.

She’s grateful for that.

“He’ll survive. I’m sure by the time I get back he’ll have made his escape, but it was... touch and go, for a minute.”  


He doesn’t stick around much longer, and when he leaves she gives him a stiff hug and darts away from the press of his lips on her cheek.

She spends a half an hour after he’s slipped out off her fire escape staring at her window, imagining the kind of injury that would allow Matt and Frank to put their differences aside long enough for Matt to cart the other man back to his loft and take care of a few bullets. It can’t have been a pretty sight.

She tells herself what she feels is nothing more than friendly concern, but she doesn’t really sell it.

\------

Karen comes home from work two nights later to find Frank rifling through her kitchen cabinets and muttering to himself, a mug of coffee in hand while he stares at the expiration dates on her spices.

The hand holding the coffee is resting at the end of a sling, and the way he moves gingerly about her tiny kitchen is enough for her to understand exactly how close he’d been to deaths door. She’s never seen him look this vulnerable in all the time she’s known him, even when he was strapped to a hospital bed.

“You’re a dumbass,” she tells him, and he grunts and gestures vaguely to the countertop where another mug of coffee sits, still steaming.   


Either he’s been sitting on the fire escape waiting to see her climb up the steps (incredibly likely, honestly) or he’s become so familiar with her schedule that he’d known exactly when she reached her floor. 

Honestly she’s much more comfortable with option one, mostly because even she doesn’t know her own schedule most days of the week. 

Karen drops her bag, listening to his annoyed huff of breath as he searches another cabinet, and curls a hand around the coffee cup, breathing in the scent.

It’s not her own shitty blend of Folgers and six month old generic grounds - there’s a sweet tang to it, and Karen, not for the first time, considers the idea that Frank might be a food snob.

The way he grimaces around a cup of diner coffee, the way he picks at a sub par burger, the way his fingers unconsciously drift over fresh produce whenever they walk past an outdoor market...

“Your oregano expired eight months ago.”

He’s a total fucking food snob

She throws a crumpled up piece of paper at him and watches him reach out to catch it. His reflexes are just as obnoxious as everything else, but he grimaces and pauses even as he catches it, taking a deep, steadying breath.

Karen checks for signs of bleeding, but whatever pains are still ailing him, at least he’s not going to die of blood loss on her kitchen floor.

“Nice sling. Very fashionable. Did Matt pick it out just for you?”

He shoots a glare in her direction, and she registers that this is probably the most helpless he’s been since he began his crusade of vengeance. Even when he’d been in the hospital, he’d been surrounded by so many guards and police, no one could have gotten to him. Of course, the only reason that had been the case was that the DA had wanted to make sure he went down in flames in the public eye, but this was a different sort of vulnerable. The kind that had made him put his stubborn streak on hold long enough to spend two days camped out in Matt’s loft. The kind that had him taking refuge in her apartment now, if the large duffle and the steaming pot on her stove were any indication.

She startles at a gentle but insistent pressure against her palm, and stares in growing confusion at a pitbull staring at her with dour eyes. The dog butts her nose against Karen’s hand again.

“Frank. Why is there a dog in my apartment.”  


“Couldn’t leave her alone. She tries to eat my guns.”  


And that is. Well, that has got to be just the most ridiculous thing he has ever said to her. And yet, it fits. 

This is her life.

“I can’t have animals in my apartment, Frank.”  


She leaves out the follow up comment indicating that he should probably also be included in that rule. “She’s quiet. Well trained. Doesn’t bite. Keep her away from the duffle in the corner and she won’t chew.”

“Frank.”  


“Should be talkin’ about you, ma’am. You know you don’t have a single vegetable in this house?”  


“What are you, my mom?” She chances a glance around the kitchen, notices the cutting board sitting in her sink, and the bowl set off to the side. “Oh my god, did you go _grocery_ shopping?”

He’s extra annoyed by the surprise in her voice, grunting as he turns away from her. The dog at her side has apparently decided she isn’t a threat - she gives a tentative lick to Karen’s thigh and then lumbers off towards the dog bed set beside the couch. 

“You eat like a college kid, ma’am. Can’t be good for your health.”  


“You know what also isn’t great for your health? Getting shot. Getting shot is terrible for your health.”  


He grimaces. “Ain’t bullets I’m worried about. It’s fuckin’ knives. Figures Red’d make a deal about all the wrong shit.”

“You know, I’ve pretty much given up on having a normal conversation that doesn’t involve shooting, stabbing, or dismemberment.”  


He’s half turned away from her, so she can’t be entirely certain that it’s not another expression of pain, but she catches his lip curl up like he might be smiling at her. 

Karen takes a sip of her coffee and has to fight back a groan. It’s delicious, smooth with a hint of citrus, and damn the man for having sharp taste buds. 

The fact that she’s just accepting of the idea of The Punisher and his gun-hating dog camping out in her apartment should probably concern her, but he’s got a frying pan on the stove now too, reaching for the finely chopped veggies in the bowl beside him, and the coffee is good, and other than a few apparent stab wounds and bullet holes Frank is his usual grumpy self. 

She feels content, and the thought should worry her, but she’s given up on anything in her life being remotely normal.

“Out of curiosity, why did you scare the shit out of my super trying to get in here last week? Obviously you don’t need his help.”  


“I was testing the security.”  


“Again - obviously you have zero problems getting in here, so...”  


“You should reinforce the locks on your windows.”  


“Anyone who wants to get in here is going to find a way. People break into my apartment twice a week now. It’s kinda my new thing.”  


He clenches his jaw, pretends not to be annoyed by her blanket acceptance of the crazies in her life.

The vegetables in the frying pan begin to sizzle, and they both try to ignore the fact that Frank is currently hiding out because he can’t fend for himself right now. She doesn’t point out that this is literally the last place he should be if there are men coming after her, too. 

She considers the idea that he feels safe with her, and then has to fight back a snort of laughter. 

“You always gotta argue the point, don’t you?”  


“You know me,” she responds on a shrug, and he glances at her out of the corner of his eye, gaze catching on her for a moment. The reality that he does know her hits her like a ton of bricks.  


He returns to his frying pan a moment later, and Karen excuses herself to go change, feeling self conscious as she slips out of her skirt and into a pair of sweats while the sounds of cooking food settle comfortably around her. 

When dinner is done, they settle into the cushions of her couch, the dog laid out across Frank’s feet, her television buzzing in the background, forks scraping plates as they sit in comfortable silence. 

It’s surreal. All of it - the home cooked meal, the quiet dog, the warmth of the body next to her, the reality that she’s grown so comfortable with the insanity that is her life that she actually enjoys the quiet solidity of Frank sitting beside her. It feels domestic and cozy, like it was just any other day.

So of course the knock on her door has the effect of a bucket of ice being poured over her head.

She leaps off the couch, watching the way Frank carefully sets down his plate and slides to his feet, and she waits for him to slip into the shadows of the corner where her bed rests before she checks the peephole.

She’s so relieved to see the face behind it that she opens the door without thought, inviting her guest in.

Foggy gets halfway through her apartment before he stops dead in his tracks. 

“Is there someone here already?”  


There are two plates sitting on her coffee table, two half-ful beers, and a dog curiously eyeing Foggy across the room.

Frank folds himself out of the shadows, and Foggy shrieks.

“What is happening,” he says, and Karen sighs.

This is her life.


End file.
